Doing what I can to save my city

Woman in the Middle| November 28, 2012

If you have been a reader of my blog since the beginning or close to it, you may have picked up hints about a side of my life that I don’t talk much about in this blog. I happen to be very involved in what I hope is the betterment of my community. I have lived in the Jurupa Valley area most of my life. I was born here, I graduated from high school here, I met my dear Hubby here, and now Hubby and I have raised our kids here. It is not a perfect place but it is a pretty darn good place. Several years ago a group of people decided to explore the idea of our group of communities becoming a city. I joined that effort and it was a wonderful day when the voters saw fit to incorporate Jurupa Valley as a city.

Our little group of people did everything we were supposed to do. Most importantly we did a financial analysis of what amount of money a city of Jurupa Valley would have to work with. Happily it was plenty to continue the services we were getting from the county and more. More things like increased law enforcement, increased code enforcement, and increased road maintenance. After my daughter was hit by a drunk driver at 9:30 one Friday night that law enforcement piece became very important to Hubby and I.

Then, a weird and unthinkable thing happened. Just two days before our official incorporation date of July 1, 2011, the State of California, in a moment of complete ignorance about how new cities are financed in this state, took away all vehicle license fee revenue from its cities. Due to the complicated way things like property tax, sales tax, and these vehicle license fees are distributed in California (which I won’t bore you with here) this was a particularly devastating hit on the budgets of the four newest cities in our state, and most particularly my city of Jurupa Valley. We lost, I kid you not, $6.7 million dollars, which was 47% or our first year budget. Que the gnashing of teeth and loud wailing!

Much effort has been made by our city council and staff to rectify this situation. Unfortunately, nothing has happened that will restore that money to us. If we do not get that money restored to us by the state very soon, we will have to disincorporate. We can not declare bankruptcy because we have no debt. We just literally do not have enough money to keep our city government going. We will reach the point of no return on July 1, 2013. That is when we no longer have enough money to keep going. Thanks California!

A small group of us decided that standing around and wringing our hands in distress about the looming death of our city was not helping the situation or helping us sleep at night. We have formed a non-profit organization called “Save Jurupa Valley.” We realize that putting a tax on the ballot is a non starter. It won’t pass. We decided instead to ask people for donations. We pulled out our trusty calculators and figured out that $6.7 million is only $70 a person or $250 household, given our current population.

Do we think we will raise $6.7 million? Well…no…as much as we would like to think we could. But if we could raise, say, $1 million, now that would make a difference! The longer we keep our city alive, the longer we have to work with the State to fix this serious problem. I appreciate that you, who probably live nowhere near my fair city, have read all the way down to the end of this post. I would, of course, really appreciate it if you would go to www.savejurupavalley.org and making a pledge or donation. But what I would REALLY REALLY appreciate is if you would help me use the power of the internet to spread the word about my little city that won’t let a big bully like the State of California beat it up until it dies. If you would like me to guest post, I can. If you would pass this information on, I would love you forever. If you know someone at some sort of media outlet that you can pass this story to, I would do everything in my power to name my first grandchild after you! Or, if my daughters won’t cooperate with that I will at least name my next dog after you!!! Thanks again for reading all the way down to the end of this very long post. Repeat after me – “SAVE JURUPA VALLEY!”